In Deep

Lake Charles didn't finish cleaning up debris from one disastrous storm before the next one hit. It started one morning, near the end of our time in Lake Charles, with a steady rain. As we drove around town, the rain fell harder, and we noticed the river, which we'd driven across many times during our stay, suddenly looked much higher. Then our phones buzzed with storm warnings. In this season's final episode, we witness the full force of severe weather in Lake Charles. We also learn how residents have started to move on, and how their experience may preview what many other communities will have to endure. More: Transcript of this episode

After severe storms struck Lake Charles, many homeowners expected to rebuild quickly. They had been paying home insurance premiums for years for just this moment. It had given them peace of mind.  But many people found that their insurance didn't cover damage the way they thought it would. People like Danielle and Al Guillory, who received an initial insurance payment that was tens of thousands less than the cost of repairs. In this episode, we learn how the insurance industry has started playing hardball after weather disasters — and what that might mean for communities across the country in the age of climate change. More: Transcript of this episode

After repeated storms, people in Lake Charles expected the federal government to help them rebuild their battered city. That's what they had been promised. That's what had happened after previous storms.  But this time was different. The federal government was slow to allocate money needed for rebuilding. Then FEMA denied assistance to thousands of people who needed a place to live, including Alexis Sheridan, who was pregnant and had resorted to living in a tent.  In this episode, we learn why the federal government kept thousands of storm victims waiting. And why similar neglect could happen anywhere in the nation. More: Transcript of this episode

In the wake of three historic storms, people in Lake Charles, Louisiana, were left to largely fend for themselves. With the federal government's slow response to the storms, many residents struggled to meet their basic needs.  Roishetta Sibley Ozane felt she had to do something to keep her community together. She started feeding people, clothing people, even paying to house them in hotels — all while she struggled to find a permanent home for her six children. In this episode, we follow Roishetta as she becomes the safety net for a city that the federal government neglected. More: Transcript of this episode

In a span of nine months, Lake Charles, Louisiana, endured two hurricanes, an ice storm, and a flood. Each one was declared a federal disaster. The government promised help, but as time wore on, this working-class city was still a sea of blue tarps and debris. Thousands of people were left scrambling to find somewhere to live.  People like Alexis Sheridan and her fiancé JJ Jones, who lost their rental home in back-to-back hurricanes. They bounced around between living in their damaged house, hotel rooms, and a tent. And with a baby on the way, the couple was desperate to find a permanent home. In this episode we spend time with Alexis and JJ as they wait for someone to step in and rebuild their city after a year of climate chaos. More: Transcript of this episode

In one year, Lake Charles, Louisiana, endured two hurricanes, an ice storm and a flood. The federal government promised help. Lake Charles is still waiting. And rebuilding on its own. In Deep, Season 2, begins September 27. Learn more: indeep.org

After months of research, In Deep reporters and editors have become fascinated with water infrastructure. But can they convince a Gen Zer to care? In this episode, Todd Melby, Annie Baxter and Dan Ackerman go head to head to persuade Erianna Jiles that she should care about water infrastructure. Who will succeed? We also answer listener questions on lead service lines and bidets! Photo: Erianna Jiles

Giant engineering projects didn't solve all of Chicago's water woes. Intense rainfalls are dumping more water on the city, resulting in more flooding. This despite about $4 billion in spending on one of the most expensive public works projects in the nation's history. So what can Chicago do? Some point to green infrastructure — plants, trees, rooftop gardens — as one of the best ways forward. And we go to Philadelphia to see how that city is really embracing green. Photo: Todd Melby

In the 1990s, lakes and wetlands dried up in Florida's fast-growing Tampa Bay region. Some attributed the drastic change to drought; others to overpumping of an underground aquifer. A pitched legal battle, known as the Water Wars, played out. Some government-run utilities wanted to keep pumping from the aquifer; others wanted to look for new water sources. Eventually, they began to work together to find multiple sources of drinking water. Guests: Randy and Mark Barthle, Barthle Brothers Ranch owners Honey Rand, Water Wars author Eileen Hart, Tampa Bay resident and water rights activist Ken Herd, Tampa Bay Water, chief science and technical officer Radhika Fox, US Water Alliance, chief executive officer Photo: Courtesy of Tampa Bay Water

Today we leave the big cities behind and ask: How does rural America manage its water infrastructure? After all, one in five U.S. households isn't connected to a sewer system. We visit the rolling mountains of Letcher County, Kentucky. There, in the early 1900s, coal mining firms built company towns with little attention to long-term infrastructure. Decades later, local residents are dealing with the consequences. We hear from former coal miner Carroll Smith about his push in the 1990s to bring clean drinking water and safe wastewater disposal to communities across the county. And we learn where he ran into challenges. Guests: Upmanu Lall, Director of the Columbia Water Center at Columbia University Carroll Smith, former Judge Executive of Letcher County, Kentucky Allan Tuggle, retired miner Edna McBee, Millstone resident Mark Lewis, General Manager, Letcher County Water and Sewer District Photo: Britta Greene

Clean water can get contaminated on its way to your faucet. In America, more than 9 million lead service lines connect city water to individual homes (and apartments), leaving millions of people vulnerable to potentially harmful doses of lead. Retired EPA scientist — and Flint whistleblower — Miguel Del Toral shows us lead pipes unearthed from his property in Chicago's Pilsen neighborhood and explains why they're no longer considered safe. And we talk to a Milwaukee father, who stumbled upon this lesson with his young son. → Read APM Reports' investigation → Read Del Toral's memorandum on Flint Guests: Miguel Del Toral, EPA scientist (retired) Rick Rabin, Massachusetts Coalition for Occupational Safety and Health Tory Lowe, Milwaukee activist (and father of four) Karen Baehler, scholar-in-residence at American University School of Public Affairs Photo: Lauren Rosenthal | APM Reports

Older American cities have a dirty problem — outdated sewer systems that use a single pipe to carry both sewage and stormwater to treatment facilities. As population growth and climate change have increased both sewage and stormwater, those pipes can get filled to capacity, and the untreated water sometimes ends up in waterways, where it wreaks havoc on the ecosystem. Chicago's strategy for stopping the overflows has been to build massive reservoirs and a 109-mile-long system of tunnels hundreds of feet below ground. It's a gargantuan holding tank for filthy water. Unfortunately, it may not be big enough.

Just how hard is it to keep wastewater out of our drinking water? Super hard. In this episode, we take a look at the lengths one great American city, Chicago, went to in order to keep the source of its drinking water clean. Reverse the flow of the river? Why not? Then we explore the origins of activated sludge — a century-old microbial goo that still cleans up our sewage today. We end with a scientist studying what a city's wastewater can reveal about the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Throughout human history, cities have grappled with how to keep excrement separate from drinking water. In the Middle Ages, gong farmers excavated human waste from city dwellers and took it to the countryside to be used as fertilizer. In the 19th century, cities grew so big, this wasn't possible anymore. So excrement went into rivers like the Thames, which is where London, a city of 2 million people in 1850, got its drinking water. At the same time, cholera was killing tens of thousands of people. Nearly everyone thought cholera was transmitted through the air. But John Snow, a London physician, discovered dirty water was the cause.

From history to policy to full-on drama, In Deep dives headfirst into the troubling state of the mysterious networks that keep our water clean and coming out of the tap. We explore when “out of sight, out of mind” could get us in deep doo-doo, because the ugly truth is that these complex systems are just as imperfect as the people who created them. In Deep will plumb the depths of the complex mysteries behind the clean water in our lives. It's an engrossing tale that mirrors the very development of our present-day human civilizations — and is shockingly just as fallible.